


Sunnymead

by frausorge



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Incest, M/M, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-26
Updated: 2008-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frausorge/pseuds/frausorge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We're not the kind of people who'll ever be happy," Gerard said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunnymead

**Author's Note:**

> This is an MCR recasting of the story [Sunnanäng](http://www.panorstedt.se/templates/Agency/Book.aspx?id=41674) ([The Red Bird](http://www.amazon.com/Red-Bird-Astrid-Lindgren/dp/0439627966)) by Astrid Lindgren.
> 
> Podfic by [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvaine/profile)[**Sylvaine**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvaine/) available [here](http://sylvaine.dreamwidth.org/15387.html).

Gerard and Mikey got up and went to school every day, and it was useless. An endless stretch of droning lectures and stinking hallways and kids who wanted to beat them up, every day as pale and empty as a blank sheet of paper.

"We're not the kind of people who'll ever be happy," Gerard said in the half-light behind the living room curtains. Their neighborhood was too risky to hang out outside. "I just don't think anything's ever gonna change."

"Maybe," Mikey said. "Maybe it will."

Gerard rolled onto his back on the carpet and looked up. "How?" he said.

"High school won't change," Mikey said. "But you're gonna graduate next spring. You could go somewhere else. College. You could go to art school."

"Art school," Gerard repeated under his breath.

"If you make it till then," Mikey said.

"And what about you?" Gerard said.

Mikey shrugged one shoulder. "I'll follow you," he said.

After a minute Gerard closed his eyes. Mikey slumped deeper into the sofa cushions and nudged his toes up against Gerard's ribs.  
   


The blank days passed, among the dirty streets and the jabbering teachers and the kids who called them fags, winter and summer just the same.

Then one afternoon Mikey got out Gerard's duffel bag and threw it onto his stomach. "Pack your shit, motherfucker," Mikey said.

Gerard sat up and curled both hands around the bag. "Seriously?"

"You've got orientation tomorrow," Mikey said. "At art school in New York City. You made it."

"I can't believe it," Gerard said, shaking his head. He went downstairs and carefully packed his best pencils and brushes into the bag. Mikey watched him with shining eyes.  
   


But when Gerard came home on his first weekend visit and Mikey asked how it was, he only shook his head. And when Gerard came home at Thanksgiving he threw his bag down on the floor without seeming to notice the crumpled papers and frayed brushes spilling out of it.

"It didn't help, Mikey," he said later that night. "The teachers are all jerks, just like they were here. I'm not learning anything that'll help me. And..."

"And?"

Gerard cut a glance sideways. "And the guy I tried to make out with at a party called me a disgusting cocksucker and gave me a black eye." Mikey winced. "Art school didn't help," Gerard said again. "It's no different."

Mikey reached over and ran his hand through Gerard's hair. Gerard sighed and closed his eyes. Mikey did it again, and again.  
   


Gerard's eyes were even duller when he came back for the winter break, and it took all Mikey could do to drag him out of the house on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. "Where are we going?" Gerard said.

"I don't know," Mikey said. "Out."

"There's nowhere _to_ go," Gerard said, but he let Mikey's grip on his hand pull him along.

Downtown the streets were crowded and raucous noise was already coming out of clubs they weren't old enough to get into. Ahead of them a short guy was handing out flyers to the people on the sidewalk.

"Come see my band, we're playing tonight at the Sunnymead," he said. "Tonight, come on by. Pencey Prep, come see us at the Sunnymead. Midnight tonight."

He was wearing a bright red T-shirt turned inside out, under a black hoodie that was way too thin for December.

"Aren't you freezing?" Gerard said, while Mikey took a flyer.

The guy smiled and shook his head. "Come to Sunnymead," he said.

"Where the fuck is it?" Mikey said. "There's no address on here."

"I'll show you," the guy said. "Hi, I'm Frank, by the way. C'mon."

Mikey and Gerard glanced at each other, then shrugged. They said their names too and trailed along behind Frank through the slushy streets. They didn't turn very many corners from the heart of downtown, but still ended up on an unfamiliar block, not much more than an alley, with high walls on either side. Frank stopped in front of some steps going down to a basement door that was propped open with a brick. A steady drumbeat spilled out through it into the harsh air. "Go on in," Frank said. "No cover yet, the afternoon opener's just getting started."

The first band was pretty good, and so was the next, and the one after that was even better. Mikey and Gerard hung out by the bar just watching, though some of the kids in the crowd were dancing a little. Mikey kept hold of Gerard's hand the whole time, and no one called them fags.

Shortly before midnight there was a break after the last opener left the stage. An excited rustle went through one corner of the the kids standing on the main floor, and after a minute Gerard and Mikey saw an older woman making her way through the crowd holding up a big tray. She came closer to them, weaving back and forth, and then she turned directly to them and Gerard said, "Nana Helena!"

She smiled, and then he said, "Oh - sorry! For a second I just thought, you look so much like..."

"It's all right," she told him. "Here, have a sandwich."

Mikey and Gerard each took a perfectly toasted triangle of grilled cheese off the tray. She smiled again and moved on.

"She's pretty much everybody's nana, here," a kid next to them said. He was pretty sturdily built and his hair stood out from his head in wild curls.

"Oh," Gerard said. "That's cool."

Finally the main band came on, with Frank at the front microphone. He counted them down to the new year, and then launched into a screaming, screeching set that left Mikey and Gerard both glancing at each other with broad grins.

"That's more like it," Gerard said when it was over.

"We'll come back," Mikey said. "Next time you're home."

Gerard's face fell a little, but he nodded.

They made their way back to the door, which was still held open by the brick. "Hey, how come you don't close the door?" Mikey asked the tall blond guy sitting there. "Aren't you losing all the heat out of it?"

"If we closed it all the way, it'd never open again," he told them. "Come back soon."

"We will," Mikey said.  
   


They did go back, more and more, every time Gerard could get a break to leave the city and Mikey could sneak out after curfew, and the music was always awesome. Mikey was getting so tall that Gerard would just stand in front of him and lean back against his shoulder, and Mikey would wrap his arms around Gerard's waist. Sometimes they thought the woman who looked like their nana was giving them warm, amused looks from across the bar. Then she would come out with her tray and yell, "Come and get it, kids!" and everyone would crowd around her for the snacks.

Sometimes they got to the club so early that no band was playing yet. There were always kids there, though, just hanging out and talking. Frank was almost always there when they came in.

"Hey, do you play any instruments?" he asked them once.

"I've been teaching myself bass," Mikey said, and Gerard turned and stared at him. Mikey flushed red.

"What about you?" Frank said.

"Um," Gerard said, "no. But I can sing, kind of."

"Cool," Frank said. "We should jam sometime."

There were smaller rooms down a side corridor, one of which was set up as a practice room with a drum kit and other instruments. Frank made Mikey show him what he could do on bass, and Gerard hesitantly took a microphone and tried singing into it. Frank played guitar along with them, and so did the guy with the curly hair, and the blond guy came and played drums when he wasn't on door duty. It was more fun than they'd had in ages.  
   


Once, as the chords of the song they'd just played died away, Gerard turned and gave Mikey a look of such sheer joy that Mikey had to lean down and kiss him. Next to them Frank and Ray started strumming something new.

"Um," Gerard said when he and Mikey drew apart, glancing over at the other guys. "Did we - are you freaked out by us now?"

"Why would we be freaked?" Ray said.

Mikey held onto the neck of his bass with one hand and Gerard's wrist with the other. "We're brothers," he said.

"We're all brothers and sisters in Sunnymead," Frank said. He came over and pecked Gerard on the mouth and smiled. Gerard and Mikey relaxed, and Bob counted them into the new song.  
   


Mikey graduated from high school and started going to the state school nearby, and Gerard graduated from art school and began working for a network with offices in the city. Gerard looked paler and more drained every weekend they met at home, and they spent nearly all their time together at the Sunnymead. They didn't dare touch much at their own house, but at the club no one minded if Gerard reached back and rested his palms on Mikey's hips, if Mikey lifted Gerard's hair and licked the back of his neck, if they kissed so dizzily in the side corridor that they had to stop and lean against the wall to catch their breaths.

"Next time you come we should play for the kids," Frank said. His other band never seemed to play anymore, and they'd been practicing hard together the last several weekends.

"You mean onstage?" Mikey said. Frank nodded. Gerard looked happy, even excited, and the animation stayed in his eyes the rest of the night, until they had to go back out and up the stairs to the street.  
   


The next weekend Gerard came out of the train station looking more ashen than ever. "I can't do it, Mikey," he said. "I thought I could, but I can't. They're taking all my ideas and turning them into fucking commercials, and I'll never, there aren't any better jobs out there anywhere. I can't even think anymore. I'll never make any art again. They're fucking killing me."

"Come on," Mikey said, hurrying Gerard along the street towards downtown without even heading home first. "Don't - don't worry about it, don't think about it. Tonight's our night, are you ready to play?"

"_Yeah,_" Gerard said.

No one was watching the door when they came in, but the floor was crowded, full of friendly kids nodding their hellos. Gerard and Mikey could see Nana's white head in a far corner behind the bar, and the other guys already set up and waiting for them on the stage, Frank and Ray tuning their guitars while Bob adjusted the mics.

"Wow," Gerard breathed. Mikey took Gerard's face between both hands and kissed him hard.

When Mikey pulled back, Gerard gave him a broad, open smile. Then he glanced around the club and smiled some more.

"Gerard," Mikey said after a moment, "why isn't the door closed?"

Gerard laughed. "Don't you remember, dumbass? If it were closed all the way it would never open again."

"Yeah, I know," Mikey said. They stared at each other for a long time.

Gerard reached over and took Mikey's hand, and Mikey kicked the brick away and let the door fall shut behind them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Sunnymead](https://archiveofourown.org/works/322747) by [thriceandonce (sylvaine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvaine/pseuds/thriceandonce)




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